1) Those who are afraid to gain fat. They tend to undereat and make little to no gains.

2) Those who gain a lot of fat in a short amount of time. They tend to overeat and make little gains because they look in the mirror and feel they must go back on a cut.

3) Those who appear to gain muscle at a rapid pace while staying relatively lean.

Question for the community:

Tell us how you think a lifter should approach eating so that they avoid being part of groups #1 & #2, and gain muscle mass with minimal fat.

A novel was not specifically written for each individual person, but there are fundamentals in which can be manipulated and adjusted, that will enable them to "write their own book" to learn what works for them, if they are willing to employ the personal-adjustment efforts that will be required.

Each of us, no matter the starting position (leaving out extreme circumstances, and medical complications/issues), begin from a basic consumption norm of:

Calories, Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats; surrounded to what is needed daily despite what one does, and activity variable. And, within this norm, each one can respond differently to macro and calorie amounts which would require numeric adjustments.

While their are some micro-nutrients, in which effect physical composition, these are the basics by which the others are affected.

How these are set up/arranged, depends on personal history (if known), current position, and personal goals.

Once the basics are arranged (through use of personal particulars), the most important issue as times passes, is the "manipulation response" (of the basics: calories, carbohydrates, fats) as the person receives bodily feed back.

Whether some of these basics are manipulated Up+ or down-, (or in some cases phased out) depends on physical responses.

These are pointing to the bodily feed back and associated manipulation response (an adjustment and manipulation of the basics to bring the physical response more in line in which they are wanting), not pointing to the potential psychological development issue (potentially in example 1), and assumes proper stimulus and consistency in the gym.

In numeric specifics, I could not arrange a diet for any of the three, because personal information is missing that would otherwise enable this.

For example, number 1 assumes potentially under eating, while it could also assume a very young and fast metabolism where the person could be eating +750 over MT, and still not making gains. Or it could be one or the other along with a psychological issue. In addition, this person "may" have a log history, where one could make sound numeric adjustments from, which would then define and refine the adjustments.